Gray Matter

by Gary Braver

  She arrived at the medical school on time. A directory inside the main entrance led her to the Department of Neurology.

  Dr. Stanley Chu, a slight man of about sixty with thinning hair and glasses, spoke with a faint accent. Rachel took a seat across from his desk. A folder containing Dylan’s medical records sat open before him. She had overnighted the package last week.

  Dr. Chu seemed a little put off by her visit and got right to business. “I looked at your son’s medical history, the test results, and the scans. As you know, there’s some dysfunction of the left temporal lobe.” From a folder he pulled out some of the films and slipped them onto the display board. “Dylan’s brain is on the left, the one on the right is a child about the same age but with normal brain anatomy.” He used a ballpoint pen to point out the shadowy shapes. “As you can see, the gyri of Dylan’s brain—that is, the folds—are smaller and the sulci—the spaces in between—are larger. Usually, they are packed closer together as you can see in this normal scan.

  “What this means,” he continued, “is that the gyri of Dylan’s brain are not developed normally, that he has experienced some cell loss here—maybe as much as twenty-five percent in this area.”

  “Oh, God,” she whimpered.

  “But I’m afraid the real problem is in the thalamus down here,” he continued. “You can’t see that as well from the scan because the structures are subtle. But there are some malformations of the thalamus, and we know this because one of the telltale marks of such malformation is the abnormal formation of the gyri up here.”

  “What’s the thalamus do?”

  “Well, the thalamus is a complicated area very deep in the brain,” he explained. “It controls all parts of the brain affecting speech and motor functions, emotions, and sensory functions—so many aspects of our makeup. These kinds of structural deficiencies are commonly seen in individuals with language-processing problems such as Dylan’s.”

  Rachel felt her soul slump. A silence filled the room as the doctor waited for her to respond.

  Finally Rachel asked, “Is this consistent with the damage of the people you studied?”

  “Do you mean did your use of TNT bring this on?”

  “Yes.”

  The doctor took off his glasses and stared at her. “Mrs. Whitman, why do you need to know this?” It was the same question that Dr. Rose had asked.

  She shook her head, but said nothing for fear of breaking down.

  “There’s no way to know that. Some of the women who had taken TNT gave birth to perfectly normal children. All I can say is that it’s statistically more probable that you suffered some reproductive cell damage which was passed on to your son.”

  “Is there anything that can be done?”

  “Done?” He seemed unclear about the question. “Well, as I said there are medications that can help him focus better …”

  “How about surgically?”

  “To what end?”

  “To reduce his problems,” she said. “To increase his learning capabilities.”

  The doctor’s eyebrows twitched slightly. “Not that I know of.”

  Rachel nodded. “I guess it was a dumb question, but I’m feeling very guilty and desperate.”

  “I understand, but I’m afraid, for all practical purposes, Dylan’s brain has already wired itself as much as it is going to. As I said, there’s a structural deformity that cannot be corrected because circuitry is missing. And it can’t be manufactured. It’s like wanting to regenerate an amputated finger. It can’t be done.”

  Rachel looked at him and her eyes puddled. “So there’s nothing that can be done? No new experimental procedures to help stimulate growth and regeneration of whatever … neurons?”

  Dr. Chu shook his head. “Not that I know of.” He then glanced at the wall clock.

  “So he’s going to be impaired for the rest of his life?”

  He paused for a second, as if carefully measuring his words. “Without taking a functional MRI, all I can say is that the visible malformations are consistent with those found in individuals with language problems. This does not mean that special learning programs won’t help his development—”

  Her voice straining, Rachel cut him off: “I did this to him.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Because of me, he’s going to go through the rest of his life mentally handicapped.” The tears were flowing freely now, and she pressed a wad of tissues to her face.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But I took the stuff. I did that to him.”

  “But nothing’s conclusive. It’s entirely possible that it’s an hereditary expression or some other cause.”

  Rachel just shook her head.

  “Mrs. Whitman, my suggestion is that you accept what has happened and go on from here. And, if I may, avoid the pitfall of so many of today’s parents—namely the fixation on academic performance. Yes, it’s understandable in our competitive culture, yet so much more goes into one’s destiny in life, especially a child’s emotional makeup and character. Unfortunately, too many people are stuck on a single notion of intelligence. In reality, intelligence is a multiplicity of human talents that go beyond basic verbal and mathematical performance. As someone once said, ‘If the Aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would flunk it.’”

  She nodded quietly, letting his words sink in.

  He tapped the pile of papers that represented Dylan’s test results. “IQ isn’t the measure of a person. Believe me. I know many so-called geniuses who are failures as human beings.”

  “I realize that but, frankly, smarter people do better in life. You have to admit that.”

  Chu looked at her with a puzzled expression, perhaps wondering why they were having this conversation. “Mrs. Whitman, I admit that in some walks of life higher intellectual abilities may mean more opportunities. But a high IQ is no guarantee of success, prestige, or especially, happiness in life.”

  She glanced around his office, at the photo of him and his wife and children posed in ski gear smiling gleefully with snow-capped peaks in the background. The Yale School of Medicine diploma on the wall. “You’ve done well.” She wished she could retract the words the moment they hit the air.

  “On paper, yes,” Chu shot back. “But you don’t know anything about my personal life or my psychological or emotional state. I could be miserable with my lot and contemplating suicide, though I’m neither.”

  “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. What you should do is spend less effort ranking your child and more trying to identify his natural gifts and competency. For all you know, Dylan may grow up to be an artist or musical genius, or someone gifted in social and interpersonal skills.”

  She nodded. “So you’re saying that nothing can be done, I mean medically.”

  Dr. Chu looked at her quizzically, as if surprised that she had not processed his words. He took a breath and let it out slowly. “Your son’s brain development is fixed. It cannot be structurally modified toward higher functionality. I’m sorry.”

  It was time to leave. She thanked the doctor and packed all of Dylan’s medical records into her briefcase and left.

  Outside the sky was overcast and it smelled like rain. Rachel walked to her car, feeling scooped out. In the distance lightning soundlessly flickered.

  And her mind turned to Sheila MacPhearson as if she were some ministering angel.

  19

  It had been days since Travis Valentine had seen his mom, and he missed her. All he remembered was being down by the canal looking for butterflies, and then he woke up in this room with the TV cartoons going all the time and the animal paintings on the walls.

  There was a tap at the door, then the turn of the lock, and a woman came in with a plate of cookies. She had said that her name was Vera. She also said she was a nurse and a friend of his mother’s.

  “Here you are,” she said, putting the tray on the beanbag chai
r. “How you doin’?”

  “When am I going home?” It was the same question he asked every time she delivered something.

  “Soon,” she said. “How do you like the books?”

  On the floor there was a pile of picture books of butterflies. (Somebody must have told them about his hobby.) He already had three of them at home.

  The woman picked one up and thumbed through it. “Very pretty. What’s this one called?”

  “A barred yellow swallowtail,” he said, knowing she wasn’t really interested.

  “You’re a smart little guy.”

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Because you’re special, that’s why.” Then she said, “I hear you have your own butterfly collection at home.” She fanned through the book.

  He said nothing. He did not like her face. It was pinchy and mean looking.

  “Where’s my mom?”

  “She’s home.” Vera’s mouth was small with thin lips that were very red. “And if you cooperate you can go home real soon.”

  Cooperate. That meant eat their food, swallow their medication, and take their tests. He didn’t know what the tests were. But Vera had said that was the reason he was here: to take the tests. Then he could go home.

  He looked at the cookies, but did not take one.

  Vera got up. “Enjoy the cookies,” she said and left using a key.

  That was the only way out of the room—a key. And they didn’t give him one.

  He hated the room. There were no windows, the door had no handle and was always locked from the outside. The floor was padded with some plastic-covered foam. The furniture was also soft—beanbag chairs, air mattress on the floor, a plastic table, and a hanging plastic clothes organizer. There were five of everything—shirts, pants, pairs of socks. Five days’ worth.

  It was clearly a place for kids because of the stupid paintings on the wall and all the stuffed animals, the boxes of “nontoxic” Crayolas on the floor, and coloring books and paper. And there was nothing hard or sharp. No pencils or pens or metal or even wooden toys. Just soft puzzle pieces and rubber building blocks. And stuffed animals. Even the food was safe—sandwiches served on easily crumbled Styrofoam plates; and there were no forks or knives, not even the plastic kind. The only hard surface in the place besides the TV cover was the black plastic hemisphere on the ceiling.

  Travis couldn’t see the camera, but he knew there was one inside because he had once asked his mom what those black bubbles were on the ceiling of the Target in Fenton on Florida Highway 75. Mom had said it’s how the people in the back room make sure folks don’t shoplift stuff.

  There certainly was nothing worth stealing in here. But the folks in the back room were watching him—even when he went to the bathroom—which made him feel creepy. He hoped they went to sleep at night. That was another thing: The lights never went off, they just dimmed automatically at bedtime, which was when the TV went off.

  In the corner was a toilet with a plastic blue curtain, but you could see through it. The TV was built into the wall and was covered with a hard Plexiglas front. It wasn’t a real TV since all it showed were cartoons which he had seen dozens of times. And it was on whenever he was awake, so that the sound constantly filled the room. He couldn’t hear the outside—no cars or planes. No sounds of other people.

  He missed the canal. He missed the woods. He missed the sounds of birds. He missed his friends. But most of all, he missed Bo and his mom.

  He didn’t know where in the world he was, but he had a sense that he was far away. Really far.

  He looked at the cookies which made him think of his mom and her cookies. And he began to cry. He didn’t want to cry. He had done a lot of that for the last two days. Sleep, stare at the TV, and cry. But he couldn’t help it.

  So he lay on the mattress and cried a deep cry, hoping he would fall asleep and wake up at home.

  20

  The first thing Greg did on the morning after his visit to the Essex Medical Center was to multifax a memo to the medical examiner’s offices throughout the state asking if anybody had seen any human remains with such a pattern of holes in the skulls as in the accompanying photos—holes that appeared to have been made by medical drills: “Any information may help in the investigation of two missing children, one of whom is a kidnap and possible murder victim.” He left his name and number.

  Nobody seemed to know what the holes were for, but every instinct in his being told him that there was some sort of plan—some sort of connection between the Essex case and the remains of the two kids.

  When he was finished, his telephone rang. It was his supervisor, T.J. Gelford. He wanted him to come to his office. Something in the tone of Gelford’s voice told him it was not a routine conference.

  Greg went upstairs to the detective sergeant’s office. Greg stiffened as he entered. Gelford was not alone. With him were Chief Norm Adler and the internal affairs officer, Rick Bolduk. They nodded when he came in, but nobody was smiling.

  “Have a seat, Greg,” Gelford said.

  Greg felt his heart rate kick up.

  “I’d like to know where you were yesterday afternoon.”

  Greg gauged their expressions as they waited for his answer. Their faces could have been hewn from Mount Rushmore. “I was on a case.”

  “Which case?”

  Before he went off on a job for any length of time, he was supposed to report to his supervisor or at least leave word with the dispatcher, especially if the investigation took him out of town. But failure to report did not call for a tribunal. “I was on the North Shore.”

  “The North Shore? That’s a hundred miles out of our jurisdiction. You were supposed to be working the high school break-in.”

  Some kids had broken through a rear window and trashed a room, maybe doing eight hundred dollars’ worth of damage. It was not a Priority One crime. “That’s not what this is all about.”

  “That’s right,” Gelford said and glanced at a piece of paper in front of him. “We got a call from a Dr. Paul Doria, an internist from the Essex Medical Center that you’d been up there mucking around about this skull case.”

  “I was investigating some leads.”

  “He said that you threatened him and two other ER staffers with arrest unless they showed you somebody’s X rays. We contacted the other two, and they confirmed.”

  “Because they failed to report suspicions of child abuse.”

  “What suspicions of child abuse? The kid had some old scars in his head.”

  “That’s right, and in the same places as the holes in the two skulls. I wanted to see if there’s a connection.”

  “Did you?”

  “I’m still working on it.”

  “No you’re not, because you coerced three members of a medical staff to compromise a patient’s right to privacy, and that’s a violation of policy.” He handed Greg a piece of paper.

  Greg didn’t have to read it to know it was a formal letter of reprimand.

  “I sorry to say this, Greg, but you’re being put on notice,” Rick Bolduk said. “If you do anything else on this skull case, we will proceed with disciplinary action.”

  Greg stiffened. He knew what that meant. At best, they would take away his gold shield and bust him back to a foot officer chasing speeders. At worst, he could be suspended, maybe even terminated.

  “Nobody wants to do this, Greg,” Rick Bolduk added, “but you’ve stepped over the line and shown insubordination to your supervisor. Those are grounds for dismissal, but we’re giving you a second chance. From this point on, you’re off this case. Period.”

  Greg nodded.

  “It’s in the letter, but I’m putting you on night shift, seven to three,” Norm Adler said.

  Greg made a flat grin. “Great.” Nothing happened on night shift in Sagamore except car accidents or drunks beating up their spouses. So what they’d give him to fill his time would be a bunch of petty larcenies and bum-check cases. His punishment was to
further marginalize him. “Starting when?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Greg knew that it was useless to protest, only because they were right to do this. He had operated on hunches, none of which had panned out. And he wasn’t doing his job in the town he was hired to protect.

  “I apologize,” he said, and got up to leave, taking the letter with him.

  “Greg, I don’t know how to say this without saying it, but maybe you should see a professional about this obsession you have for this skull case. I don’t think it’s healthy for you. I can give you some names.”

  He was saying that Greg was weird: that his pursuit of this case was pathological. That he could end up like Remington Bristow, the investigator in the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office who spent thirty-six years doggedly investigating the 1957 “Boy in the Box” case, only to go to his grave without ever determining the identity of the murdered child found naked in a cardboard carton by the side of a country road—or his killer. That Greg should see a shrink.

  Maybe they were right.

  But it crossed Greg’s mind that working nights freed up his days. He nodded his appreciation. “I’ll be okay.”

  21

  By eight-thirty on Saturday morning Thorndyke Field was a mob scene. The four adjacent soccer fields had been sectioned off with orange cones as eight teams all in different-colored uniforms practiced kicking maneuvers. Along the sidelines, parents and other spectators had gathered with orange wedges and coolers full of drinks.

  The parking lot was nearly filled as Rachel and Martin arrived with Dylan. The boy looked positively adorable in his crisp white uniform and new blue soccer shoes and bright red sports bag over his shoulder, the contents of which consisted of three boxes of granola bars—enough for everybody on the team (his idea)—and his Curious George doll. At this age level the teams were designated only by their colors. This morning the Whites were playing the Reds.